LitPDX seeks to amplify marginalized voices, and welcomes all, their ideas, their events, and their words.

For details regarding specific events please contact the organizers or venues. If you are an organizer or venue and would like to reach out to us please feel free to contact us or submit an event using our submission form. We’d love to hear from you!

Modern Tarot

Literary Arts 925 SW Washington Street, Portland, OR, United States

Tarot, the ancient card system, is having a 21st century renaissance. With more and more artists improving upon the medieval straight, white, thin and able-bodied imagery, today everyone can find a deck that speaks to them. Whether you are a curious newcomer to tarot, an burgeoning beginner or a pro, this lecture-style workshop will walk you through the structure and meaning of the 78-cards, pausing to answer participant questions as well as offer tips for spreads and ritual as well as fascinating trivia attached to the iconic images. Access Program We want our writing classes and Delves to be accessible to everyone, regardless of income and background. We understand that our tuition structure can present obstacles for some people. Our Access Program offers writing class…

$80

Schoenfeldt Distinguished Writers Series: Naomi Shihab Nye

University of Portland 5000 N. Willamette Blvd., Portland, OR, United States

The Schoenfeldt Distinguished Writers Series was founded in 1988 by Rev. Arthur Schoenfeldt, C.S.C., of the University's Holy Cross community, and his sister, University regent Suzanne Schoenfeldt Fields, in honor of their late parents. The series was permanently endowed by Suzanne Schoenfeldt Fields and her husband Fred Fields with a gift to the University's Defining Moment Campaign. Twice each year (usually in February and October), Schoenfeldt guest writers offer a public reading and also visit students and faculty during their time on The Bluff, especially those in literature, science, and journalism classes. Originally focused on fine writing in and of the American West, the Schoenfeldt Distinguished Visiting Writers Series is designed to honor and celebrate the best of American literature by bringing some of the…

Free

Consider This: Black Political Power in Oregon

Alberta Rose Theatre 3000 NE Alberta St, Portland, OR, United States

Join Oregon Humanities on Wednesday, September 14, for a conversation on the state of Black political power in Oregon with Joy Alise Davis, executive director at Imagine Black; Keith Jenkins, director of Southern Oregon Black Leaders, Activists, & Community Coalition; and Marcus LeGrand, vice-chair of Bend-La Pine Schools. Journalist Bruce Poinsette will facilitate the conversation. The event will take place in-person at the Alberta Rose Theatre, 3000 NE Alberta St., in Portland. Doors will open at 6:00 p.m, and the event will begin at 7:00 p.m. Tickets are $15, and no-cost tickets are available by request. Joy Alise Davis is a Cincinnati native who graduated from Miami University with a bachelor of arts in political science and from Parsons School of Design with a master…

Free – $15

Portland Arts & Lectures 2022/23: Abdulrazak Gurnah

Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall 1037 SW Broadway, Portland, OR, United States

This event is part of our 39th season of Portland Arts & Lectures. Subscriptions for the five-part lecture series are on sale now. All lectures will be held in person at The Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall in downtown Portland, OR. For more information on the season, please see our FAQs or reach out to us at la@literary-arts.org. Abdulrazak Gurnah Abdulrazak Gurnah is celebrated novelist, and was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2021. The Nobel Prize committee cited his “uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism and the fate of the refugee in the gulf between cultures and continents” for his win. Gurnah’s novels include Memory of Departure, Pilgrims Way, Dottie, Paradise, which was shortlisted for the 1994 Booker Prize, Admiring Silence, By the Sea, Desertion, The Last Gift, Gravel Heart,…

$90 – $355

Modernist Design & Literature with Melanie Nead

Lewis & Clark College 0615 SW Palatine Hill Road, Portland, OR, United States

Melanie Nead (LC ’03) of Lonesome Pictopia is a muralist and wallpaper/ textile designer. Melanie will discuss the Arts & Crafts Movement and its relationship to modernist design and literature. Hosted by Professor Rishona Zimring and her ENG 450-02 Senior Seminar class. Free Miller Hall, Room 102

Free

Visiting Writers Series: Lesley Nneka Arimah

Reed College - Eliot Hall Chapel 3203 SE Woodstock, Portland, OR, United States

Lesley Nneka Arimah was born in the UK and grew up in Nigeria and wherever else her father was stationed for work. Her stories have been honored with a National Magazine Award, an O. Henry Award and the Caine Prize. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, Harper’s, McSweeney’s, GRANTA and has received support from MacDowell and the United States Artists Fellowship. She was selected for the National Book Foundation’s 5 Under 35 and her debut collection WHAT IT MEANS WHEN A MAN FALLS FROM THE SKY won the 2017 Kirkus Prize, the 2017 New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award and was selected for the New York Times/PBS book club among other honors. Arimah lives in Minneapolis and is working on a…

Free

Omar El Akkad on Writing the Codacene: Literature in an Age of Endings | 57th Annual Nina Mae Kellogg Lecture

PSU - Smith Memorial Student Union 1825 SW Broadway, Portland, OR, United States

Vanport Room (SMSU 338) The English Department presents the 57th Annual Nina Mae Kellogg Lecture, "Writing the Codacene: Literature in an Age of Endings," with Omar El Akkad. What does it mean to tell stories in a moment where it seems so much of what the world once was, it is unlikely to ever be again? Every generation must grapple with its own conception of apocalypse, and literature is no stranger to the end of the world. In this talk, journalist and author Omar El Akkad discusses some of the reporting assignments, novels and works of non-fiction that have influenced his writing, and the uncertain space many contemporary authors must inhabit when writing about a world mid-calamity. Omar El Akkad is an author and journalist. He was born…

Free

Ledding Library Speaker Series

Ledding Library of Milwaukie 10660 SE 21st Avenue, Milwaukie, OR, United States

The Ledding Library Speaker Series is back!  Join us for a night with VM Brasseur, author of Forge Your Future.  Brasseur will give a presentation on the future of Open Source Software. Room Location: Community Room

Free

Portland Arts & Lectures 2022/23: Anthony Doerr

Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall 1037 SW Broadway, Portland, OR, United States

This event is part of our 39th season of Portland Arts & Lectures. Subscriptions for the five-part lecture series are on sale now. All lectures will be held in person at The Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall in downtown Portland, OR. For more information on the season, please see our FAQs or reach out to us at la@literary-arts.org. Anthony Doerr Anthony Doerr is the author of All the Light We Cannot See, winner of the Pulitzer Prize, the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence, the Alex Award, and a Finalist for the National Book Award. The New York Times Book Review has said that Doerr “writes about the big questions, the imponderables, the major metaphysical dreads, and he does it fearlessly.” His 2021 release, Cloud Cuckoo Land, spent nineteen weeks…

$90 – $355

Portland Arts & Lectures 2022/23: Lauren Groff

Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall 1037 SW Broadway, Portland, OR, United States

This event is part of our 39th season of Portland Arts & Lectures. Subscriptions for the five-part lecture series are on sale now. All lectures will be held in person at The Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall in downtown Portland, OR. For more information on the season, please see our FAQs or reach out to us at la@literary-arts.org. Lauren Groff Lauren Groff is the New York Times bestselling author of four novels and two short story collections. Her 2021 novel Matrix, which Esquire described as “Incandescent… a radiant work of imagination and accomplishment,” was a National Book Award finalist and was selected by President Barack Obama as one of his favorite books of the year. Her works have won The Story Prize, the ABA Indies’ Choice…

$90 – $355